


The Fire Sage and the Promised Prince

by tsunderestorm



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 15:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20138065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: Once upon a time, the Sun loved the Moon so much that he changed the tides of fate.





	The Fire Sage and the Promised Prince

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was published in the IgNoct zine, [AETURNUM](twitter.com/ignoctzine), and was my half of a collaboration between myself and my darling [Alma](twitter.com/mttbrandhime).
> 
> I am truly proud to share this fantastical alternate universe with you, and deeply grateful to the project mods, the co-creators with whom my work shares the pages of this beautiful zine, everyone who supported this endeavor in any way, shape or form! Enjoy!

Once upon a time there were two demigods, little known compared to the Six and humble in comparison. Their titles were nonexistent, their dominions meager, and all that they commanded seemed next to nothing in the face of Bahamut’s omnipotence. That which made them special, though, was something just as mighty as the Draconian’s sharpened blade and just as stable as the perch of the meteor on the Archaean’s strong, stone shoulders; as pure as the crystalline rivulets that the Glacian wove through the land and as nourishing to their souls as the Fulgarian’s stormy rains were to the land. Together they represented something truly moving; something, in fact, that was even more powerful and potent than the sextet of Eos’ astrals combined...their love.

Watching over the days was the sun god, with hair golden-brown and rich like wheat ready for the harvest. The rays of light that he shone onto Eos were akin to liquid gold, sparkling just as his eyes did: the color of spring blooms and fresh grass enriched and nurtured by love and light. Intelligent eyes, watchful eyes...eyes that saw everything, but lingered on only one.

His counterpart was the moon god, who had smooth skin like fresh cream and hair dark as ink. His eyes were like storm clouds at twilight, blanketed by sleep-heavy lids when he lay down his head to rest during the day. The stars were his friends and the constellations were formed of his dreams, fanciful tales in which snow crystal foxes led him through palaces and blades of light vanquished daemons, in which a man with the resilience of a late-summer seed guarded him from nightmares. He watched over the darkness of the day’s end and everything it brought, a light in the night sky to mirror the sun’s rays.

The sun was in love with the moon, as deep in hopeless adoration as the moon was with him in turn. Over the course of their young lives there came a time when the days seemed to stretch on forever as the sun allowed the moon an opportunity to rest, when he hoped to be still shining bright when the object of his affection rose from his slumber. At times the nights grew longer as the moon, too, ached to see his love, times that the veil of darkness stretched out for hours and hours as the moon shirked his duties in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the sun’s rays, times when his moody withdrawal caused the waves of the oceans on Eos to grow so tempestuous that not even the Astrals could calm them. Duty-bound, they were always out of reach, never able to truly express how they felt, always desperate to see in each others’ lights, to twine their bodies into an embrace that would make the passing of day and night seem irrelevant.

They learned to show their feelings in other ways, ways unseen by their divine creator. Unable to press love notes into each other’s palms or leave kisses on cheeks and temples, they exchanged mouthed words of affection as the daylight gave way to night, longing looks as the night surrendered its place to day. The sun burned brighter, hotter, andstronger than he’d ever burned before, gifted with a rock from the moon’s surface that he’d polished to a shine. A jewel set into a ring, a promise, a piece of the moon and his history that they made wholly and entirely theirs. The moon, too, showed his love in small ways; refusing the advice and direction of anyone, listening only to the sun with his murmured words and soft encouragements and not even the Draconian, the deity who had given him life and power, the very ability to think for himself and love, could persuade the petulant moon to change his ways. 

Then, in the midst of a love affair whose weight threatened to shake the very cosmos, their world fell down around them. The sun learned of a terrible truth: that the moon was created to be undone, that he in his desperate attempts to support him were ultimately built to fail. The Draconian presented him with a terrible vision, let it flash before his eyes in vivid detail and he ignited red-hot with fury, nearly burned himself out wanting and wishing to protect the moon from his hateful fate. How could the moon god be meant for a destiny that had been orchestrated by divine fingers on a chessboard years before they exploded into existence? How could Bahamut’s claws indent the clay-rock of their beings in creation only to crush it years down the road?

His moon was to fall from the sky, pierced by the thirty sharpened blades that the Draconian wore on his back. The light that had kissed the lands under cover of darkness was to burn so brightly for one intense second that it vanquished everything ugly and sick with the world and the sun...he was to do nothing. He was to watch him, to stand beside him as he ascended to legend while he fell to the earth, to smile and congratulate his beloved for his bravery as he perished as atonement for transgressions he’d had no hand in committing.

The sun god faltered. Disbelieving, he refused. How could the moon be destined for this terrible providence, this tragic end to a life that in the grand scheme of things had never truly begun? How could he, so young and innocent, be doomed to be destroyed, a lump of space rock forgotten by the astrals and the cosmos itself as nothing more than a mere flicker in the Draconian’s memory?

_Please_, the sun god begged of the Draconian. _Please don’t take him from me. I’ll change the winds, I’ll turn the tides, I’ll make a mockery of the cruel mistress that is fate. _Unmoved by mortal pleas, Bahamut stood stoic, convinced of his course of action, resolute in his decision.

_No, _he said. _The moon is to be the light that banishes the darkness._

_I’d burn the world for him_, the sun god threatened, incensed. Lovesick and fury-blind, he threatened that which had the power to unmake the entire fabric of time. _You know that I can. Don’t make me._

Still, Bahamut refused. The sun and the moon were irreplaceable, he reasoned, perfectly formed by his own hands from the sparkling dust of the prismatic and glorious Crystal. When all hope seemed lost, when even the brightness of their beings made everything seem lightless and lifeless, The Glacian offered them her blessing. She was cold as the ice snaking through the snow-capped mountains that even the sun’s light could never kiss to melt but she said to the Draconian: _They make me feel alive,_ and with the corners of her beautiful blue lips upturned into a smile she said _Allow them this, O Bahamut, for you have the power._

When he objected, she insisted. _Be it not like The Infernian_, she cautioned to him as she pressed kisses that froze into crystalline patterns on his steel faceplate. _This sun that you’ve created has the power to burn as hungrily as he did, eons ago. _The Fulgarian, too, offered his blessing with a wave of his storm-staff and in the face of such devotion, even the Archaean offered his in turn, professing that their love was as steadfast as stone and their destinies as entwined as the roots of a hundreds-year-old tree.

Even swayed by the divinity in his dominion, Bahamut frowned upon their union. With his voice deep and stern, he told them: _Should you leave the protection of the heavens, I cannot guarantee your ageless lives._

_I don’t care_, the sun god said. _I can’t watch him die for this, this nothingness._

The moon god smiled, bright and radiant as his cheeks lit up pink. _I don’t need to live forever, _he said. _I just want him._

Their impassioned pleas and sidelong glances inspired even the Draconian’s battle-hardened heart, but only just. He blessed them, waving a gauntlet-clad hand to release them from their thrones in the heavens but punishingly, demanded his pound of flesh in turn. Taking a piece of the night’s watcher, he made a new moon, crafted from the spine that had stood strong for years, supported the shoulders that held the weight of duty. The moon god would be mortal, able to touch and feel and love but he would never walk without pain. Taking the fire that burned in the sun’s striking eyes he crafted a new star, shining and powerful at the expense of the sun god’s sight. He could save his love, but as punishment for his rebellion he could never look upon his beloved’s face again.

To the sun god he gifted the name of “Ignis”, warm as the heat that had sustained Eos for millennia and to the moon he bestowed “Noctis”, simple and elegant. Beautiful. Matching names, names that even in mortality bound them together.

**~ later, on Eos ~**

“Do you think they miss us?” Noctis asked, leaning back in the grass and staring at the stars. He remembered some of them, could pick out some of the constellations from his time in the sky - memories that grew fuzzier each day, eclipsed by the memories he’d been making with Ignis.

Ignis smiled. “Perhaps. I’m not sure. I daresay the new ones are doing a much better job than us.”

“Does it bother you?”

Ignis turned toward him, inclining his head, listening for the minute signs that would alert him to Noct’s discomfort that he couldn’t see. “Does what bother me, Noct?”

“The fact that we’re gonna die.”

“I don’t want to die without you,” Ignis said truthfully. “I would prefer a shorter life on Eos with you to a lifetime of never getting to touch you, to feel you.”

Noctis turned away, flushed red, thankful that only the stars could see his embarrassment. They seemed like they were smiling at him, winking bits of light in the endless expanse of heaven. He imagined that they’re saying _you did the right thing_, though it doesn’t always feel like he did.

“You don’t ever regret it? That you did all this for me?” Noctis asked. He doesn’t regret _his_ choice, doesn’t regret the pain of the cruel swipe of Bahamut’s claws along his lower back, the scar that had left him with pain in his mortal body since he had come to inhabit it. He worried Ignis did, though, worried that he was resentful of his beautiful green eyes that see nothing, of his scars like claw marks down his temple.

“You gave up so much.” Noctis said, thoughtfully, fingers stroking the edge of Ignis’ scar. “Doesn’t it scare you sometimes?”

“The only thing that scares me is dying without you.” Noctis leaned over, resting his head on Ignis’ shoulder as he listened to the sounds of the night: cicadas and the soft lapping of the lake’s water against the shore. “It would be a dark and desolate world without you, Noct.”

Noctis sighed. “You’re always in the dark.”

Ignis turned and kissed his temple. “I’ve always had a fondness for the night. Or rather, the light that shines from it.”

It took Noctis a moment to process the affirmation, the clever compliment Ignis had woven into a simple sentence. Noctis’ name, its meaning...even with a simple statement Ignis had once again professed his love.

**~ years later, when the page turned on their story ~ **

The mortal bodies they gave up forever to touch turned brittle with age. In death, they were interred together in the mausoleum of kings before them, hand in hand. The creaking old tomes in the Citadel’s library held the star charts and the stories, pages that, even cracked and yellowed with age, seemed to hold some rare sort of power. With their mortal lives ended, Bahamut took pity on them. 

_I cannot give you back your ageless lives_, he said. _But I will immortalize you forever in the stars, turn you into the constellations you watched as mortals._

Ignis, the Fire Sage and Noctis, the Promised Prince: constellations that anyone stargazing from the Citadel roof in twinkling Insomnia, anyone in Lucis or even all of Eos, could see if they only knew where to look.


End file.
